November 17, 2011 | 10:35 pm

An Orthodox Gay Wedding?

Posted by Rav Yosef Kanefsky

As has been widely reported, Rabbi Steve Greenberg performed a Jewish wedding ceremony for Yoni Bock and Ron Kaplan last week, a ceremony being referred to in at least one press account as “the first Orthodox gay wedding”.  This description derives from the fact that Rabbi Greenberg’s ordination is from YU, and that he has always identified himself as being Orthodox. I know the latter to be true not second-hand, but through the friendship that he and I have maintained over many years, dating back to our years at Yeshiva.

This wedding ceremony raises a serious question for the part of the Modern Orthodox community in which I live. The question is not about whether we should recognize the ceremony as being religiously significant. We obviously do not and cannot.  The formal religious partnering of two men or two women is unalterably contrary to both the law and the spirit of the Torah and the Halacha, and an Orthodox gay marriage ceremony is as hopeless a misnomer as an Orthodox intermarriage is. How we assess the religious significance of the ceremony is clear-cut and simple.

The question that it raises rather, is whether we should continue to publicly speak about Orthodoxy and homosexuality in the nuanced way that we have been speaking about it over the past several years. I hope that you are by now familiar with the “Statement of Principles” http://statementofprinciplesnya.blogspot.com/ in which many Modern Orthodox rabbis and teachers affirmed the importance of being inclusive of, and sensitive to the challenges of gays and lesbians within the Orthodox community, even as we recognize that Halacha views same-sex sexual interactions as prohibited.  This is indeed a highly-nuanced position. So much so, that our shul hosted a major event last summer whose purpose was to explore what exactly this all means in real life. (And we were pleased to have Rabbi Greenberg participate in that discussion.) But when I read about the wedding, I wondered to myself whether our nuanced approach had unwittingly contributed to the erosion of the halachik standard, whether we had created the impression that the values of sensitivity and inclusion must ultimately trump the law. I asked myself whether with regard to this issue, nuanced discussion simply couldn’t be heard. 

As I thought the whole matter through, I came to the conclusion that despite these legitimate questions, our nuanced public discussion must go on. The essential premise of the discussion, that the religious prohibition on homosexual sex must not be turned into a justification for demeaning, embarrassing or harassing gays and lesbians, is still as true as ever. The central idea that gays and lesbians who desire to daven and perform mitzvot should be welcomed into the community of davening and mitzvot, still makes sound religious sense. I do think that last week’s wedding compels us to think more – and to talk more explicitly - about the point at which inclusion begins to send a misleading message. And I do think that we must take even greater care now to not be naïve in our deliberations. But I also believe that any decision to abandon our nuanced discussion would be a decision to abandon many cherished members of our community. It is our responsibility to them to carefully forge ahead.

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November 8, 2011 | 2:58 pm

Putting the “J” Back In Orthodoxy

Posted by Rav Yosef Kanefsky

“Shall the Judge of all the earth not do justice?”

By humbly but firmly addressing this remarkable question to God, our father Avraham installed justice as a primary Jewish value. Everything, even the Divine intention, needs to be measured by the yardstick of justice. One can see the influence of Avraham’s position manifest in a variety of decisions later rendered by the Sages. The Torah rules, for example, that the “rebellious son” is to be judged, and ultimately executed, based upon his projected future malfeasance (“nidon al shem sofo”). One imagines that the Sages’ conclusions that this law was intended for academic but not practical purposes, was motivated by the fact that by normative legal standards, it is unjust to punish someone for sins he has not yet committed. (In the Midrash, God Himself explains His decision to save the young Ishmael from dying of thirst, in exactly this way.) Similarly, the Sages’ insistence that all of the Biblical “eye for an eye” legislation must be read non-literally, explicitly derives from the inherent injustice of the literal application (Who’s to say that the victim’s eye and the perpetrators eye are of equal value?)

The primacy of justice as a religious value is in great evidence in the writings of the prophets of course, chief among them Isaiah, who declares the sacrificial rituals in the Temple to be of no value (or worse) as long as the widow and the orphan cannot find justice in that society. “Zion will be redeemed through justice”, Isaiah declares. Justice is a primary value, and its absence calls the value of our other forms of religious devotion in sharp question.

It has struck me recently though that while, as an Orthodox community, we are able to speak with clarity and passion about Torah and Mitzvot, about Hesed (kindness), and Tzniut (modesty / humility), we just don’t talk a lot about justice. We seem to feel uncomfortable around the term, associating it with center-left politics and with liberal forms of Judaism. Our shuls tend not to have social justice activities, and our schools, even when providing instruction in texts such as Parshat Mishpatim or Bava Metzia, focus entirely on conveying information, rather than on analyzing the material for how they are wrangling with questions of justice.  Perhaps we even fear that there is something dangerous or subversive about raising the issue of justice when we are engaged in the study of God’s law. How would we, for example, discuss with today’s fifth graders, the justice of a master not being liable when he mortally strikes his slave, as long as the slave did not succumb to his injury within the first 24 hours? The Torah’s explanation that “he (the slave) is the master’s property” probably would not suffice all by itself.

Our demotion of justice from being a first-tier value has not come without consequences for us. It has, for example, warped our communal conversation about Shalom Rubashkin, as at the same time that we decry the injustice of his sentencing, we have still not developed the language with which to describe the injustices he visited upon the workers in his factory. It hampers our ability to fully confront the phenomenon of agunot, as our conversation is often limited only to the halachik details of the laws of divorce or to the fruitless game of he said / she said, because the plain and open cry of “injustice!” doesn’t seem to have sufficient currency to sway Orthodox public opinion. (Calling out the injustice cannot alone solve the problem of course, but it would go a long way toward shaming people into compliance.)

On the occasions that we have in fact assigned justice its proper place, we have achieved important things. The prevalence in Modern Orthodox circles of daughters reciting kaddish for parents, and of daughters marking their Bat Mitzvah in their shuls – each being practices which were met with considerable objection at first -  is the result of the simple triumph of justice. Justice, one of our basic religious values.

Let’s learn again how to use this powerful word. Let’s take the example of our father Avraham. And let us bring closer the day when Zion will be redeemed through justice.

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November 3, 2011 | 1:58 pm

Mocked by Kim Kardashian.  You, Me, All of Us.

Posted by Rav Yosef Kanefsky

A few months ago, I was sitting in the car with my 18 year old son, as Kim Kardashian’s name was mentioned on the radio. “Who is that guy?” I asked (though for the life of me I can’t explain what male name I thought Kim was a diminutive of.) After one very long incredulous teenage stare, I at least learned that she’s not a guy.

Over the last few days I couldn’t miss the news that Kim got married and then filed for divorce in the space of 72 days. I realize that it may all be part of her reality show, and that maybe I shouldn’t be taking the whole thing too seriously. But for the sake of an institution that a lot of us believe in deeply – the institution of marriage – I believe it’s worth speaking up.

Whenever I work with couples as they plan their marriages, we talk about the rewards of marriage, but even more so about the covenant of marriage. Because it is a covenant. That’s what it is. To marry is to undertake the most sublime set of commitments that we will ever pledge to another human being. And people not prepared to do this, truly have no moral business getting married.

Dr. Erich Fromm said it best in his classic book “The Art of Loving”, whose central thesis is that nobody can passively “be in love” for very long. If we plan to love someone long-term, we have to be committed to engaging continuously in the activity of “loving” that person. For Fromm, this involves sacred commitments to continuously demonstrating “care, responsibility, respect, and knowledge.”  His elaboration on the element of “knowledge” is especially striking. “To respect a person is not possible without knowing him; care and responsibility would be blind if there were not guided by knowledge…. The knowledge which is an aspect of love, is possible only when I can transcend the concern for myself, and see the other person in his own terms. I may know, for instance, that a person is angry… but when I know him more deeply I know that he is anxious and worried, that he feels lonely…”

Not surprisingly our own literature sounds many similar themes. In his “Lonely Man of Faith”, Rabbi Joseph Soloveitchik writes that the point of the Adam and Eve story is that a person who wants to overcome loneliness can do so only through a gesture of sacrifice. Adam literally gives part of himself to another, and as a result is able to establish with Eve, “a new kind of fellowship [where] not only hands are joined, but experiences as well, [where] one hears the rhythmic beat of hearts starved for existential companionship and all-embracing sympathy…” This is the marriage. Profound both in its transformative power and in the mutual commitment it demands. And it is ridiculed by a marriage that lasts 72 days.

Even the sexual dimension of marriage is about the covenant. Commenting on the verse “and he shall cleave to is wife and they shall become one flesh,” the Netziv of Volozhin wrote, “ it is only the active effort of cleaving between husband and wife (i.e. sexual intimacy) that brings them closer together such that they become one”.  Marital sexuality is purposeful. It requires kavannah, in the same way that prayer does.  For it preserves and deepens the covenant.

Whenever someone publicly mocks and diminishes the institution of marriage, the great majority of us who understand that marriage is our most scared covenant must respond. By calling out the offenders for what they’ve done, by insuring that our children understand what marriage really is, and by re-affirming our personal commitments to our covenanted partner.

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October 27, 2011 | 10:09 am

Simchat Torah and the World Series

Posted by Rav Yosef Kanefsky

It’s gets to me every year. I well up with tears the minute we begin reading B’raishit on Simchat Torah morning. I’ve always insisted, even when they were very young and having a grand time running around shul, that my kids be inside with a chumash open at that moment. I’m tearing up as I write this, just thinking about it.

I have never fully understood why I have this reaction. I had thought it had something to do with the way that the continuous cycle of Torah reading symbolized the continuity of Jewish life from one generation to the next. And maybe this is indeed part of the reason I react to it as I do.

But a new revelation struck me when, of all things, I was contemplating the long off-season that will follow the conclusion of the world series later this week. (With embarrassment, I admit that I’m a hopeless baseball junkie.) What a contrast with Simchat Torah! If we could, we would read straight from the last word of Dvarim to the first word of Braishit, without even taking a breath in between. Were if not for the logistical need to lift and wrap the first Sefer Torah before opening the second, we’d go straight from one to the other without stopping at all. Because even after a whole year of Torah reading we are not tired. We do not want or need an off-season. Torah is our life and the length of our days. It’s our breath, our pulse. There is no moment that captures our burning love for Torah the way that starting B’raishit seconds after completing Dvarim does. It’s the most romantic moment of the Jewish year. Pass the tissues!

Professional athletes work hard, and I do not begrudge them their off-season. But every Fall, I realize anew what a privilege it is to be a member of a people so in love that we want to be forever on.

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October 24, 2011 | 3:00 pm

Purim vs. Halloween

Posted by Rabbi Hyim Shafner

The leaves fall and the air turns crisp and an underlying feeling of fear and foreboding enters our neighborhoods.  Graves pop us in front yards along with skeletons and the like, bringing death out of its boundaries and into our domains.  Parents, many Jewish parents included, will encourage their children to dress up in frightful costumes along with the superhero of the moment and go door to door exclaiming- “trick or treat”, that is, in its classic intention and indeed its plain meaning: Give me some candy or I will play a trick on you.  In larger cities this might mean throwing eggs at your home (as when I lived in New York City) or draping toilet paper all around. 

I have often thought about this Halloween activity in contrast to the Jewish custom described in the Biblical Book of Esther (9:22) of mishloach manot, sending food to neighbors and friends on the holiday of Purim.  Purim commemorates the day in 356 BCE when Queen Ester saved the Jewish people from the genocidal tyrant Haman who set out to kill, and almost succeeded in killing, every last Jew in the Persian empire, the then known world.  The purpose of sending food to others on the day of Purim is to develop a sense of camaraderie and family with others.  We all eat of each other’s food and thus express our trust and familiality to each other.  In the Purim custom, one sends food that one cooked through a messenger, usually one’s child, to someone else for the holiday.  It must be fit to be a small meal consisting of at least two kinds of foods. 

True, we also dress up on Purim, often as the characters from the Book of Esther, some nice and some not so nice but ultimately the difference between this practice of mishloach manot and that of trick or treating is stark.  Purim foods must be delivered in daylight, and must be sent to someone, whereas Halloween treats are taken from others in the dark while personifying the dead and celebrating the scary.

Though many join me in decrying Halloween as a holiday that teaches bad character and pagan ideals, others will say Rabbi Shafner is overreacting; kids just do it to have fun and get candy.  Perhaps.  But I think that everything we do and everything we teach our children to do subtly communicates values.  Dressing them up, often in scary costumes and sending them to the homes of people they do not know to get candy smacks of bad character development.  Who is to say that such things do not have a subtle effect on who we are as a society.  Such practice inculcates taking and even, albeit subtly, glorifies threatening.

This Halloween if you are Jewish I encourage you to give your child a treat and tell them Halloween is not a Jewish holiday.  Wait for Purim when you can give food to others in celebration of Jewish unity, instead of taking it from people in quai-pagan celebration.  If you are not Jewish I also encourage you to forgo the ritual of going door to door at night, risking errant cars and needles in apples, and instead to spend the night as a family.  If Halloween is an important religious holiday for you then ask yourself what activities your religion would advocate your substituting for trick or treating.  Perhaps spend the evening reading the bible and talking together, or volunteering with the needy, training ourselves to give rather than take.

Together may we help to build a society founded on the value that the best way of getting is to give.

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October 7, 2011 | 5:14 am

Kavvanot (Points to Consider) For A Meaningful Yom Kippur Prayer – 5772

Posted by Rabbi Barry Gelman

This guide will be placed in each Machzor at my shul. Feel free to print it out and use it on Yom Kippur. May we all be inscribed in the book of life.

Kavvanot (Points to Consider) For A Meaningful Yom Kippur Prayer – 5772

The Yom Kippur davening is challenging in that it is very busy ,full of choreography and very long.

Some find it difficult to focus and create moments of quiet introspection.

The Yom Kippur Mussaf is an amalgam of prayers with High Holiday themes as well as recreations of the Temple service, mourning dirges and the account of the Ten Martyrs.

Use this guide during the silent Mussaf Amidah or the repetition of the Mussaf Amidah to help you focus on the prayer themes.

Instead of talking to your neighbor when the service starts to feel too heavy, use this sheet to redirect your thoughts.

Do not feel rushed to keep up. It is more important to internalize the prayers.

What Life Teaches about Judaism     (Rabbi Jonathan Sacks)

Never compromise your principles because of others. Don’t compromise on kashrut or any other Jewish practice because you happen to find yourself among non-Jews or non-religious Jews. Non-Jews respect Jews who respect Judaism. They are embarrassed by Jews who are embarrassed by Judaism.
Ask Yourself: How can I strengthen my Jewish commitments?

Never look down on others. Never think that being Jewish means looking down on gentiles. It doesn’t. Never think that being a religious Jew entitles you to look down on non- religious Jews. It doesn’t. The greatest Jew, Moses, was also, according to the Torah, “the humblest person on the face of the earth”. Humility does not mean self-abasement. True humility is the ability to see good in others without worrying about yourself.
Ask Yourself: How can I exhibit Jewish and personal pride without crossing the line of haughtiness?

Never stop learning. I once met a woman who was 103 and yet who still seemed youthful. What, I asked her, was her secret? She replied, “Never be afraid to learn something new”. Then I realized that learning is the true test of age. If you are willing to learn, you can be 103 and still young. If you aren’t, you can be 23 and already old.
Ask Yourself: Do I learn enough? Is my Judaism young? If not, how can I fix it? (Hint: Ask Rabbi Gelman)

Never be impatient with the details of Jewish life. God lives in the details. Judaism is about the poetry of the ordinary, the things we would otherwise take for granted. Jewish law is the sacred choreography of everyday life.
Ask Yourself: Do I make every Jewish moment count? Do I reflect when I pray? Am I mindful when I perform a Mitzvah? If the answer to any of these is no, seek ways to slow down so as not to let Judaism get erased in the hustle and bustle of life

How To Pray when one is not suffering – Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel (Man’s Quest For God)

But there is a wider voluntary entrance to prayer than sorrow and despair – the opening of our thoughts to God. We cannot make Him visible to us, but we can make ourselves visible to Him…The trees stand like guards of the Everlasting, the flowers like signposts of His goodness – only we have failed to be testimonies to His presence…How could we have lived in the shadow of greatness and defied it?  To pray is to take notice of the wonder, to regain a sense of the mystery that animates all beings, the Divine margin in all attainments. Prayer is our humble answer to the inconceivable surprise of living.

Faith In The Jewish People – Rabbi Joseph B. Soloveitchik

“Let me confess; sometimes, in bed at night, when I cannot sleep, and my mind wonders, I am assailed by sober thoughts and overtaken by worry concerning the Jews in Eretz Yisrael (Israel) and the fate of Diaspora Jewry. As far as the Diaspora is concerned, it seems to us that despite all of our great efforts, despite the growth of the yeshivas and the flowering of a wonderful religious youth, we are a very small portion of the Jewish population of America….And doubt gnaws away : will we be swept away by these strong waves of assimilation which rage around us in America….Such a view, in my opinion, strikes a blow and wounds our faith in Knesset Yisrael (the Assembly of Israel) which we are commanded to keep….[Regarding] the spiritually estranged Jew, [to] Jews who have deserted, assimilated and have become extremely alienated from other Jews and Judaism. Even regarding these, we have a standing assurance that “if any of you be driven out unto the outmost ends of the horizon, from thence will the Lord thy God gather you.” Every prediction of “spiritual extinction” and complete assimilation” is contrary to faith in Knesset Yisrael, which s the same faith in the advent of the Messiah, a foundation stone of Judaism…” A Jew who has lost faith in Knessset Yisrael, even though he may personally sanctify and purify himself by being strict in his observance of the precepts…such a Jews is incorrigible and totally unfit to join in the Day of Atonement which encompasses the whole of Knesset Yisrael, in all its components and all its generations.”

Ask Yourself:

Do I identify with Rabbi Soloveitchik’s initial concern for the spiritual fate of the Jewish people? If so, what bothers me about the current situation and how can I make it better? If not, what are the positive elements of the current state of Jewish religiosity that are encouraging? How can I make them even better?
What is the best recipe for Jewish spiritual survival? Name three elements of a Jewish life that are indispensable to achieve that goal.
Rabbi Solovetichik ultimately “regains” his faith in the survival of the Jewish people. Ask yourself: Who do I think will ultimately be those who will survive and remain part of Knesset Yisrael? Am I part of that group?

Don’t Let A Good Sin Go To Waste   Rabbi Barry Gelman

Sounds like strange advice. Let me explain. According to Rabbi Solovetichik there are two kinds of Teshuva (return). One type of Teshuva calls for a complete obliteration of the past. “Certain situations leave no choice but the annihilation of evil and for completely uprooting it. If one takes pity and lets evil remain, one inexorably pays at a later date an awesome price…Repentance of the individual can also be the kind that requires a clean break, with all of man’s sins and evil deeds falling away into an abyss, fulfilling the prophecy, “An thou will cast all their sins into the depths of the sea” (Micah 7:19). Many have experienced this feeling or the desire to erase parts of our life. We feel nothing good can come out of those particular experiences or memories. We may be so successful at this that we really cannot remember the event even if asked about it or reminded of it. This type of Teshuva is useful and necessary in certain situations.

There is another type of Teshuva. says Rabbi Soloveitchik: “…there is another way – not by annihilating evil but by rectifying and elevating it. This repentance does not entail making a clean break with the past or obliterating memories. It allows man, at one and the same time, to continue to identify with the past and still to return to God in repentance.”

Rabbi Chaim Navon, in his book Ne’echaz B’Svach, offers an analogy of two people who were in a car accident. One of them may decide never to get back on the road, while the other becomes a driving teacher in order to rain a new generation of careful drivers. They had the same experience – but the affect of that experience differed greatly between them.

The person who swore off driving had a dead past – a past that set up the future.

The person who became a driving instructor has a live past – a past that is defined by the future. This person’s past is defined by decisions of the present.

Ask Yourself:

What past sins can I use to make myself a better person?
What are some strategies I can use to avoid compounding sin by making sure I use past mistakes to create better future?
Talking it over with my spouse/friend / rabbi
Studying more about this idea of repentance (ask Rabbi Gelman for further reading)
Spend time after a sin to think about how to redirect it

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September 20, 2011 | 9:38 pm

Rosh Hashanah: A day of insight not atonement

Posted by Rabbi Hyim Shafner

What is the difference between Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur?  We often refer to both as days of judgment, yet they seem as different as night and day.  Rosh Hashanah is a Yom Tov, a joyous holiday, on which we eat and drink and have simcha, joy.  In contrast, on Yom Kippur we are filled with awe and perhaps anxiety, asceticism, and standing for long periods of time, almost the opposite of the Yom Tov of Rosh Hashanah. 

The Rambam, Maimonides, writes that the shofar (ram’s horn) is like an alarm that wakes us from the everydayness of the year, the wasting of time, the banal passage of day in and day out.  The sound of the shofar shocks us into evaluation, into reflection upon the rest of the year. 

But if Rosh Hashanah is such a day of reckoning, why not say vidoy, confession, on Rosh Hashanah as we do on Yom Kippur?  Indeed according to the halacha, Jewish law, there can be no tishuvah, no repentance, without all of its steps, one of which is verbal confession before God. 

Rosh Hashanah, according to the Talmud is the main Day of Judgment.  Yom Kippur is a kind of last resort for those not forgiven on Rosh Hashanah.  As the Talmud says, “On Rosh Hashanah all pass in judgment like sheep…the righteous are judged for life, the wicked for death and the judgments of others are suspended until Yom Kippur.” Then why is Rosh Hashanah a holiday filled with food and drink?  Why not have Yom Kippur on the first of Tishrey (the Hebrew date upon which Rosh Hashanah falls) and be done with the process of judgment? 

Perhaps Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur are fundamentally different and necessary modes of doing tishuvah (repentance and return).  We see this I think from Maimonides.  According to Maimonides Rosh Hashanah with its shofar sound is not a day of achieving atonement, of the steps of repentance, but of waking up, of coming to terms with life.  Rosh Hashanah lacks the four steps of tishuvah, one of which is formalized confession, yet it is indeed a day of judgment. 

There are two stages to tishuvah one which is achieved on Rosh Hashanah and one on Yom Kippur.  One is not complete without the other.  If we had only Yom Kippur, we would go through the formalized steps of repentance, regretting our sin, stopping it, asking and receiving forgiveness, verbal confession, and becoming someone who will not do it again.  But this would be an incomplete tishuvah.  This would be a tishuvah, though real and transformative with regard to each sin itself, of formality.  The tzadik, the completely righteous person, who has no sins to speak of does not require Yom Kippur and is, according to the Talmud forgiven on Rosh Hashanah, but the righteous individual still does require Rosh Hashanah.  Why?

The tishuvah of Rosh Hashanah is not atonement for individual sins but an essential day of waking and reckoning, of evaluation and insight, which even the person who has not sinned must undergo.  As Maimonides points out, this day with the sound of the shofar, and not Yom Kippur with its atonement, conditions the rest of our year, makes us see the rest of our year as one in which every moment is significant, one in which every moment is a test of making choices, of being at a spiritual crossroads. 

Before we can engage in the formalities of the tishivah process of Yom Kippur, we must experience the more global life changing insights of Rosh Hashanah.  To do tishuvah on all of our sins, to feel regret for each of them, ask forgiveness, confess them and not do them again is not enough.  The New Year must be a time of whole life insight and existential transformation.  Such is the call of the Shofar.

My blessings for a New Year of insight, light and transformation,
Rabbi Hyim Shafner

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August 26, 2011 | 7:55 am

Tie School Funding To Israel Education – Rabbi Barry Gelman

Posted by Rabbi Barry Gelman

Having just read this article asking whether building more Jewish museum is the best use of our resources, I began thinking again about two dilemmas facing Jewish communities across the United States.

Decreased concern and knowledge about the State of Israel on the part of Jews in their teens, twenties and thirties.
Day School tuition crisis (i.e. families cannot afford to send their children to Day Schools)
These problems are related to each other.

Let’s start with Israel.

Concern for and support of the State of Israel is related to what people know about Israel. What people know about the State of Israel and their attitudes towards the State of Israel, by and large, is related to their Jewish educational experiences.

Schools should be incentivized to teach about the State of Israel and urge their students to support the State of Israel. I am not suggestion that schools teach that everything that the State of Israel does is right, but their should be a general attitude pervading schools that the State of Israel represents the cumulative aspirations of the Jewish people. Furthermore, it should be taught that Jewish art, learning, and religious and cultural expression can only be fully expressed in Israel.

Once these ideas are firmly established, then the debates about policy, religious coercion, etc, can be entered into. First, however, the positive connection to Israel must be established. It is perfectly acceptable, even necessary for young people to know that they can voice their opinion when it comes to the State of Israel. Those voices are only valuable when they come from those committed to the overall endeavor to begin with.  No doubt certain realities of Israel will disappoint students, but with a firm foundation as to why Israel matters, the students will at least engage in those areas of Israeli life that inspire them.

It is like a family. There are aspects of everyone’s family that are less thnn pleasant, but because the value of the family is a given, there is engagement and rarely a decision to cut off ties because of those unpleasant realities. This can work for American students vis-à-vis Israel, if the relationship with Israel is strengthened.

How does this tie into the tuition crisis? Easy, Incentives. Jewish philanthropy from private individuals as well as Federations can be contingent on the existence of Israel programing at schools.  Schools that are willing to dedicate significant time to teaching the importance of Israel get a bigger piece of the funding pie. This strategy plays directly into the hands of the Federations in that graduates of those schools who were worthy of the additional funding will no doubt become future donors to Federations soliciting money for Israel.

Trips to Israel are nice. Israel advocacy programs are valuable. None of these attempts to re-engage our youth with Israel will have a large-scale effect to swing the pendulum back. The day schools are the battlefield.

This is a simple formula. People who know about Israel will support Israel, even as they debate the issues.

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August 25, 2011 | 8:56 am

Soloveichik Agrees with Lopatin, According to Lopatin, by Rabbi Asher Lopatin

Posted by Rabbi Asher Lopatin

I am including as a post below a letter from Yitzchak Zev Soloveichik commenting on my post in Morethodoxy regarding outside influences on Halacha. Yizchak Zev is the grandson of Rav Ahron Soloveichik, zt”l, my rebbe, and also the son of Rav Moshe Soloveichik, shli’ta, Rav Ahron’s oldest son, and also a formative rebbe of mine - my first rebbe at Yeshivas Brisk. 

Before posting the whole letter, I want to start with his “p.s.” which is a big, big deal:

YZS: “P.S. Here’s a freebie for you. I believe I have heard from family members that the Rov said Shasani Yisrael.”

RAL: Wow!  So now we have the Gemarra in Menachot, the Rosh, the Gra, the Rama (with a varient, but still a positive b’racha) and the Rav.  Maybe a string of minority opinions, but a pretty good string!

Also, before the letter, I want to state that I was overjoyed when I read it because I think that Dr. Soloveichik is agreeing with the main idea I was pushing that outside factors lead us in certain halachic directions.  I also agree with Dr. Soloveichik that these outside factors should never dictate what the halacha will be.  To decide halachic practice we need to go back to all our sources and our mesorah and also to consult and work with the poskim of our generation and previous generations.  I am a puny when it comes to p’sak and knowledge of the masoret.  However, Rashi interprests Mishlei (Proverbs) (20:5) that “A halachih in the chacham’s heart (in the heart of our mesorah) is sealed; but it takes an understanding pupil (even a small one) to draws it out.” We, even the small of knowledge and judgement, have to use these outside factors, emotions, philosophies, methodologies and ideas to draw out the true Torah and law from the wisest of our generation and the generations before us.  That is why with She’asani Yisrael, I do not rely on my own judgement: I look to Rav Benny Lau, to an important Centrist Orthodox posek, and to, Rav Soloveichik, zt”l, for guidance to tell me if my small halachic suggestion has validity or not.  And it seems it does.  To me, Orthodoxy is about how we respond to the outside pulls and pressures: If we go back to our tradition and our traditional thinkers and teachers to find the answers, we are being Orthodox. 

OK.  The letter:

Dear Rabbi Lopatin

Thank you for honoring me by responding in such a formal fashion. To write an article just based on a very short comment I posted shows me great and undeserved deference. Though I feel that you have mischaracterized what I have said. This, I am sure, is because of some lack of clarity in my writing (an unacceptable indiscretion for a Soloveichik).

You make the following statement about my opinion:

Basically, the argument is that genuine halacha, Orthodoxy or Torah true Judaism should not be influenced by the outside world: by philosophic trends, cultural currents, ideas of the society around us. Thus, Soloveichik argues that first we need to come up with the halacha – which blessing to say, in this case – and then we work on how it interrelates with the world around us.

This is a poor clarification of my position for a number of reasons; allow me to address just a few of them:

1.  You desire to boil the totality of my views on halacha to a statement I did not make. what I did in fact say was “The most important lesson I think I have ever learned from my grandfather’s Halachik positions is that it was first and foremost what is the true Halacha and then how is it applied to the situation at hand.” There is no inference in this statement to suggest “genuine halacha, Orthodoxy or Torah true Judaism should not be influenced by the outside world: by philosophic trends, cultural currents, ideas of the society around us” Indeed any attempt to paskan Halacha must take into account the seeming infinite influences of the world, our personalities, the societies we live in, in short Hakadosh Baruch Hu’s Hascacha Pratis that synthasizes all this to create the reality that molds who we are, how we think, and thus how we approach halacha. Not just as laypeople, but Poskim as well.  Indeed all this forms what is the true psak Halacha. Nevertheless, I

believe, as do my forefathers, whom you quote to discredit a position you apply to me which I do not actually adopt, that psak must begin by first understanding the axiomatic principles of the Torah, gzearah shave, kal vichomer, tzad hashaveh shebahem and so on.  This is what I am certain Rav Chiams’ often quoted “parallel world of Halacha” is referring to (Kudos by the way for not Channeling the GRa”Ch as a refutation for your misunderstanding of my position).

It is only when those basic formulations of halachic principles are upheld and firmly established can we then begin to try to come to the appropriate solution. Those next steps require, really demand, that one look at the all the great external forces at work to ascertain what the unique psak of that unique moment is. Not to first decide what you desire the outcome to be simply because liberal (or conservative, but mostly liberal) social ideas and philosophy hold greater sway over you (not you personally of course) then great moral and ethical truths of the Torah, and as an afterthought try to find shaky halachik reasoning to support your world view. I would add that the former position requires a much greater understanding of the world and a superior sensitivity to human emotion psychology and vitality then the latter dogmatic narrow-minded approach the Morethodox (I assume it is not a pejorative) rabbis take.

2.  The central point of my comment was not a halachik critique, as I made clear in the opening sentences of my comment. (those certainly not my world view of Morethodoxy, which is far more complex than one sentence). Rather it was a critique on the apparent lack of Halachik sincerity you and your compatriots take in this and other matters. The willingness to change your view of whole lessons learned from the Torah, to besmirch the those great generations of Jews whose sacrifices are the sole reason for our peoples continued existence, is I believe the central theme of my criticism.

3.  My last point is about your initial assertion that “ Yitzchak Zeev Soloveichik sent in a comment that crystalizes the debate over whether She’asani Yisrael – Who created me an Israelite! –  is the right blessing for men and women to say in the morning or the three negative blessings, Not a Goy, Not a Slave, Not a Woman/by God’s will.” This is an attempt to cast the whole argument as based on a position which you falsely attribute to me and once you brush aside the straw man you built you imply that that is the totality of your opposition. Rabbi Lopatin you can be wrong for a whole host of reasons beyond what we debate. Beyond my critique is the critique of a great many scholars who find your position repugnant for a whole host of reasons, some better then others (scholars and reasons).

P.S. Here’s a freebie for you. I believe I have heard from family members that the Rov said Shasani Yisrael.

End of Dr. Yitzchak Zev Soloveichik’s letter.

RAL: All I can say, is thank God I am an Israelite, and thank God halacha allows me to say that b’racha every day.  For being an Israelite means I can struggle, think, question and have full ownership of the Torah and tradition that God gave the Jewish people.

Rabbi Asher Lopatin

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August 24, 2011 | 8:26 pm

A religious dilemma

Posted by Rabbi Hyim Shafner

My friend and former student Esther (not her real name) embodies all the values and qualities that are deemed praiseworthy in the Orthodox Jewish community…except for one.  She is a leader of Jewish people helping to form observant and learned communities wherever she goes.  She is smart, modest, humble, learned in Torah, observant with the punctiliousness and passion that is the Orthodox ideal, and she even grew up Orthodox, the perfect match for any Jewish man…except that she is, and has always been, only attracted to women.

Esther tried for many years to figure out what her observant Jewish life would look like.  She knew two things for sure, she was gay and she was Orthodox.  The question for her and for many Orthodox Jews who are only attracted emotionally and sexually to people of the same gender is: How should I live my life?  Should I be celibate?  Should I live with a roommate of the same gender and raise children but not tell the world in any official way that we are as loving, supportive and as one person as much as any married heterosexual couple?  Should I have a partner and be open about it and raise an Orthodox family and risk being ostracized?  The easy fixes like not being gay or not being religiously observant are usually not options for people who really are gay and who really are observant Jews.

I always knew the time would come when Esther would realize that she would not really be able to live alone her whole life.  A woman of community and family, steeped in the beauty of Jewish family values, of Shabbat (Sabbath) tables filled with rejoicing, singing, and words of torah study, and of community.  A woman who knows what the important values are and is not moved by the narishkiet (Yiddish for nonsense) that larger American society and its superficial media driven values constantly churns out to us.  Esther is a woman steeped in Orthodox Jewish family values and Torah through and through. 

The time that I knew would come, has come.  She met someone she loves, someone she can create a loving, religious Jewish family with which will embody the very best of Orthodox values.  Is creating a Jewish home with another woman and raising Jewish children the best thing for Esther’s Jewish life?  I believe it is. 

Esther wants to take the values that Judaism teaches about relationships, as embodied in its writings about Jewish family and weddings and in the Jewish wedding ceremony itself, and utilize them in a ceremony that will deepen and solidify the relationship with her same gender spouse that will serve as the foundation for their “bayit neeman biyisrael,” their house of faith among the Jewish people.  Instead of slinkingly living with a “roommate” she wants to publicly solidify this relationship and foundation for her new family in front of friends and community in order to encourage its longevity and strength. 

The halachot (Jewish laws) of Jewish marriage pertain only to a Jewish man and a Jewish woman who are permitted to each other.  True, it is not forbidden in Judaism to ceremoniously read sections of the book of Ruth about relationships, or the Song of Songs, or to make a blessing on a cup of wine, or to offer a prayer on behalf of a bride and a bride.  On the other hand all of the paradigms of marriage in the Torah are only between men and women. 

Is it the time to say our focus on drawing lines and holding ground against gays, their relationships and their marriages is wasted energy?  To say as Rabbi Shmuly Boteach recently has that we should stop focusing on gay marriage and worry about the 50% of heterosexual marriages that fail?  To acknowledge that marriage does not have to prompt a community analysis of what happens in people’s bedrooms but can just see what happens in their dining rooms and living rooms such as loving children and teaching them Judaism in a house of Jewish celebration and faith among our people?

Maybe this is the moment to stand up and say it is better for gay orthodox Jews (at least those who can not be celibate and still keep the rest of the Torah with joy) to be in monogamous relationships which are the most observant ones they can be?  To say why assume every relationship is only judged based upon what we think might be going on in the couple’s bed room and not on the building of a traditional Jewish home?  That when it comes to heterosexual couples who may be violating things in their bedroom that are forbidden by the Torah we turn a blind eye but when it comes to gay couples whose bedroom violations may be much less, perhaps only rabbinic, that suddenly we are up in arms? 

If I believe the best thing for Esther is to “marry” a woman and raise a Jewish family and I do not help facilitate that because I fear the reverberations in the Orthodox community am I a hypocrite?  On the other hand I am a Jew committed to Jewish law and tradition and same gender marriage has never been part of that, indeed has been seen as outside of it.

So what is a rabbi to do?

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August 22, 2011 | 12:40 pm

Outside Influences Make Orthodox Torah Work, by Rabbi Asher Lopatin

Posted by Rabbi Asher Lopatin

How Our Tradition Works: Outside World Ideas are Necessary for our Understanding of Halacha
About a week ago, Yitzchak Zeev Soloveichik sent in a comment that crystalizes the debate over whether She’asani Yisrael – Who created me an Israelite! –  is the right blessing for men and women to say in the morning or the three negative blessings, Not a Goy, Not a Slave, Not a Woman/by God’s will.  Basically, the argument is that genuine halacha, Orthodoxy or Torah true Judaism should not be influenced by the outside world: by philosophic trends, cultural currents, ideas of the society around us. Thus, Soloveichik argues that first we need to come up with the halacha – which blessing to say, in this case – and then we work on how it interrelates with the world around us.

However, the great Netziv of the 19th century, the great great (not sure of how many greats) grandfather of Yitzchak Zeev Soloveichik himself, and of the Rav zt”l, Rav Ahron, zt”l, and so many other talmidei chachamim, and talmidot chachamim, declares openly in many difference places that from the very start, the tradition of halacha had to use external wisdoms, “chochmot chitzoniyot”, in order to carve out new, innovative understandings of the law which God gave Moses at Sinai.  In fact, in Haamek Davar on the portion of Tetzaveh (see also in Haamek Davar on Beha’alotcha, and also in the Emek HaNetziv on his introduction to this work on Midrash Sifrei) the Netziv says that Moshe Rabeinu was the first innovator, who was the teacher for all the innovators who would come after him.  The Torah of Aharon, the Torah of tradition, is not enough: For the Jewish people to truly get closer to understanding God’s Torah, and how to practice it, we need the Torah of innovation (koach hachidush), which is derived from the seven types of wisdom – from the outside world – which are represented by the Menorah, the candelabra in the Temple.  The Netziv understood that the only way for us to begin to fathom the infinitely complex Torah that God gave us was by be open to the trends, wisdom and ideas that are present in the world around us, and look at our tradition in their light – the light of the seven branched Menorah, where the six branches shine on the middle branch which is Torah itself.

The genius of our traditional system, which I would currently call Orthodox Judaism, is that it is able to take the light from the outside world, and follow a standard system of halachik analysis, which creates a dialectic between our tradition and all the new elements outside of our tradition, and is able to remain loyal to halacha and mesoret (tradition) which integrating the best and the true elements from the outside world.  We need to have confidence in our halachic system that when feminism, egalitarianism, freedom, democracy, liberalism, and any other philosophic trend is shined on it, it will respond in a proper way to reveal new, but true, insights into God’s Torah.  Sometimes halachic practice and customs will change because of the influence of these outside wisdoms, but this change is not a change in Torah, it is just our discovering exactly what God meant, and our rabbis meant, so long ago, at Sinai, and respectively, in the great academies of the Talmudic era.  The Netziv tells us that the only way we have to understand Torah is by using these branches of the Menorah, the ideas and wisdom that the world around us offers.

Of course the Netziv tells us that when innovation is introduced it brings about arguments and quarrels – pilpul – and anyone who comes up with an innovation – like saying She’asani Yisrael instead of the three negative b’rachot – has to allow his or her innovations to be subject to arguments against them.  That is the way the system is meant to work.  However, the Netziv says that if an innovation can withstand those arguments – and only if it can stand up to them – it eventually will become Halacha l’Moshe Misinai.  Wow!  That’s how we discover what was said at Sinai:  by seeing what influence Carol Gilligan (Tova Hartman) or Ibn Rushd (Rambam) or neo-conservative (another famous Soloveichik) thinking has on our tradition – which gmarras and Rishonim does it push us to understanding in a different way that perhaps anyone else did up until now – and perhaps, if these new interpretations withstand the scrutiny of the Torah world over a period of time, then we will get a further glimpse of Torah Misinai.  Not new, but rediscovering a 3500 year old Torah revelation.

Rabbi Asher Lopatin

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